The WS Social Housing Finance team have acted for Longhurst Group in a recent bond sale. This £50m sale which completed on 3 April 2023 was the third and final sale as part of a £100m retained further bonds issuance, sold to an agreed investor over three dates pre-agreed in a forward purchase agreement, and follows our work acting for Longhurst on the previous sales of £25m back in August and £25m in April 2022 and the forward purchase agreement itself.
Winckworth Sherwood LLP’s Banking & Finance and Charging teams previously acted for Longhurst Group on the original £100m retained further bonds issuance, which completed in March 2022. The new outstanding amount of the bond was £350 million.
Having also acted on both the 2018 original bonds and the forward purchase agreement in connection with the forward sale of such retained further bonds, our dedicated Social Housing Finance team worked closely with the Longhurst team for an efficient and cost effective transaction.
Rob Griffiths, Deputy Chief Executive and Chief Financial Officer at Longhurst Group, said: “We were really pleased to have worked again with Lucy and the team at Winckworth Sherwood on the final retained bond sale and are extremely happy to have successfully completed the final sale. We will use the proceeds from the bond sales to support our development programme for new affordable homes, alongside the investment we are making in existing homes. We were thoughtfully and expertly guided through all stages of the transaction by Winckworth Sherwood.”
This transaction follows on from Winckworth Sherwood advising Longhurst Group on their group restructure in 2019, which saw the four group RPs being collapsed into a single RP.
Lucy Grimwood, Social Housing Finance Partner at Winckworth Sherwood, said: “It was a pleasure to have supported Longhurst on the bond sales, and we look forward to working together again in the future.”
This transaction was recently covered in Social Housing.